The call to transform education must begin with the youngest children. The world is not on track in meeting Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Target 4.2 committing countries to ensure that all girls and boys have access to quality early childhood development, care and pre-primary education by 2030. There is solid scientific evidence that early…

This advocacy brief summarizes the key findings from "A World Ready to Learn: Prioritizing Quality Early Childhood Education. Global Report" and its call to action for governments, donors, and partners to invest in pre-primary education. This brief addresses three of the toughest questions ministries of education and finance are likely…

The Sustainable Development Goals highlight the critical importance of pre-primary education and set the broad ambition that by 2030 all girls and boys have access to quality early childhood development, care and pre-primary education so that they are ready for primary education. Today, the world is facing a learning crisis: While millions of…

In the world's richest countries, some children do worse at school than others because of circumstances beyond their control, such as where they were born, the language they speak or their parents' occupations. These children enter the education system at a disadvantage and can drop further behind if educational policies and practices reinforce,…

The Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) emphasizes that all children have the right to be full members of society, and be included in all forms of participation inside the home and out in the community. Unfortunately, many children with disabilities are not afforded this…

The purpose of these guidelines is to provide methods for comprehensive education sector analyses to support the preparation and monitoring of education sector plans. They are an update of a 1999 document that has been used to support the preparation of approximately 70 Education Country Status Reports (CSR) in more than 40 countries. The goal of…

The gap between the levels of learning that education systems are providing and what children, communities and economies need, is growing. The breadth and depth of this learning crisis constitute the greatest global challenge to preparing children and adolescents for life, work and active citizenship. The lesson of the learning crisis is clear:…